You Didn't Say You Loved Me
by storybycorey
Summary: This is a multi-tasking fic. It covers an anonymous request for the "Things you didn't say at all" prompt, as well as the contest qualifications for @txf-fic-chicks birthday contest, which were: birthday, cake, London, and red.


You didn't say you loved me on that very first night, back in the beginning, before we'd really begun. Of course you didn't. You barely knew me.

But as you warily slid down that red silk robe, you certainly didn't hate me.

I spilled myself out to you so easily that night, Scully—I don't do that very often. Just as I know you're not in the habit of stripping for strangers in the midst of a midnight thunderstorm. By the end of the night, we'd somehow emerged strangely even.

A partnership borne of skin and secrets is perhaps the very best kind.

….

You didn't say you loved me when I worked to untie your wrists, as they carted away a madman and you cried against my chest.

You were so disturbingly close to the edge that night, I honestly thought I'd lost you. Too close. We both felt it. You'd been "fine" for as long as I'd known you, and then, for the first time, you weren't. When your tears wet my shirt, my heart wept right along with you.

Perhaps it wasn't love just yet, but I swore I felt something in those tears, Scully, in your surrender, in your trust.

….

You didn't say you loved me in that hospital room, while I struggled through a telepathic shoving match and barely made it out alive. I'm glad you didn't—I wouldn't have deserved it.

I pointed a gun in your face, Scully. Yet instead of flinching, you planted your feet firmly in the ground and believed in me, while silent tears flowed slowly down your cheeks. You were my strong, tall redwood, and when I looked past your leaves to your sky-colored eyes, I tried my hardest to huddle myself amongst your branches.

You saved me.

Later, when we stood before his hospital bed, you came to my rescue again. You didn't say you loved me, but your searching hand in mine was so much more than enough.

….

You didn't say you loved me with my lips against your forehead, in a long, white corridor that smelled of disinfectant and death.

I brought you flowers when I heard. I should have known that cancer takes flowers and stomps on them. We're used to being stomped on, Scully, but that time… that time the foot was wearing steel-toed boots.

But you were strong, so strong. I was humbled by your strength, quite honestly. You never cease to amaze me.

When I wrapped you in my arms to rest my chin upon your head, I was terrified we'd never reach "I love you."

….

You didn't say you loved me while I grinned around a soda straw, as you tried not to smile in a crowded D.C. bar.

Your eyes were ten times brighter than the sparks from your candle, and the flush of your cheeks infinitely sweeter than that of the Pepto-Bismol-pink frosting. It was your birthday cake, Scully, but it was my celebration, too—that you were still there, fighting with me, that we hadn't let the cancer take that away, too.

Though I tried to downplay my gas station gift, I didn't fool you a bit with my playing-it-cool-charade. As you peered up at the stars that night, your words bled through to my soul.

….

You didn't say you loved me from your hospital bed, your eyes hollow and wet and eerily close to empty. I kissed your cheek to make things easier, but I don't really think it did. I wonder whether it actually made things harder.

I prepared for the black hole of your absence before you were even gone, and I'm sorry for that. You shouldn't have had to bear the weight of my pain piled upon your own.

When you went into remission, hearing the words didn't even matter to me anymore.

….

You didn't say you loved me when you slipped inside my room in the god-forsaken team-building state of Florida.

Instead, you offered me wine and cheese and consorting.

But sipping wine while looking into your eyes on a polyester bedspread could've ruined me, Scully. Your life was still so very precious to me at that point—I was terrified I'd ruin things. So I ran.

You didn't say you loved me against a log beneath the stars either. But you sang to me, and that was almost just as good.

….

You didn't say you loved me while we danced in each other's arms, in a town that felt more like a comic book than an actual real-life place.

You fit there so precisely, and though I'd always suspected you would, the reality of it was actually a little bit startling. I wanted to walk with you all the way to Memphis that night. You were alive and happy and just-for-a-moment-mine.

I twirled you into the crowd, then brought you back in close, and you laughed in a way that made my heart ache.

….

You didn't say you loved me as we stood amongst the ashes, as my life (and now yours) lay crumbled beneath our feet.

My brain sang a twisted melody of 'nothing left nothing left nothing left', while red flashing lights throbbed in time with the beat. It was only things, yet for so very long, those things were all I had.

But then, amidst the pain and smoke and wretched smell, I realized how terribly wrong I'd been—I still had one thing left.

Your cheek against my chest meant everything.

….

You didn't say you loved me in my hallway—as you tore out my heart and carried it with you toward the elevator.

Thank god you stopped, because how could I have lived? Without a heart?

I felt it when it slid back down my throat, bulbous and slick. As your forehead met mine and made me a promise. As your lips crawled closer and whispered an oath. I can't count the number of times I've cursed that damn bee.

It didn't matter if you said it then though, because when you decided to stay, I felt it.

….

You didn't say you loved me back in 1939. But of course, you weren't even really you then.

But you didn't say it in 1998 either.

Your "oh brother" cut much more deeply than it should have, but you see, Scully, I could still taste your firecracker lips against my own; I could still feel your rock-candy fist against my jaw.

I know you thought I was speaking nonsense, but couldn't you have at least humored me?

….

You didn't say you loved me in a batter's box, while we celebrated a not-quite-birthday-but-really-just-an-excuse, late on a Saturday night.

Honestly, I just wanted to be with you. To press against your rear and hold you in my arms and whisper sweet nothings, though we were nowhere near a bed. I hadn't heard you giggle for such a very long time.

When you told me to shut up, I swore I heard "I love you" in the very next swish of the bat.

….

You didn't say you loved me underneath my doorway.

We exchanged vows all the same though. You didn't say the words, but I felt them in the warmth of your lips against my forehead; I saw them reflected in the twilight shine of your eyes.

You've held the words clenched so tightly in your fists for all these years. But what you didn't know, Scully, is that they slipped right through your fingers and fell against my cheeks. They fluttered against my lips right alongside your thumb. They were there, Scully. You just didn't say them.

….

You didn't say you loved me when I kissed you New Year's Eve. God bless Dick Clark and his plastic, smiling face.

The excitement oozing from the television was palpable, but when your lips pressed ever-so-slightly against my own, I no longer gave a damn about the new year, much less the new millennium. I only wanted to capture every last millisecond's worth of detail from that kiss and tuck it safely inside my heart before we parted.

But do you want to know what I treasured even more than that kiss, Scully? Your smile when you pulled away. In that smile, I know I saw the words.

…..

You didn't say you loved me on that monumental night, when, nervous and unsure, you asked me the question that could've changed it all. You took my breath away, Scully. Did you know that?

That wasn't a request made out of obligation or friendship or duty—I know that. It wasn't one you took lightly. In fact, that question was so heavy, I wonder how you carried it around with you at all.

When I gave you my answer, you hugged me, and the words you were afraid to say spilled over my shoulders like rainfall.

I collected them, you know.

….

You didn't say you loved me late at night against my shoulder. Maybe you fell asleep before you got the chance.

I returned from London with a Stonehenge cap and to a newly enlightened partner beside me on my couch. You glowed, Scully. You found a part of yourself I don't think you even realized was missing. To be honest, I was stunned—that this new growth could sprout so quickly in my absence. But then, you've always done such an excellent job of surprising me.

We spoke of fate and destiny and of choosing the right path, and as I listened to your sleepdrunk voice, I knew for certain I'd chosen correctly. But, of course, I've know that since Bellefleur.

Later that night, you surprised me for a second time. You introduced me personally to your newly discovered part, and once we'd met, you introduced me to the rest of your parts as well—new and old, within and without. You were so fucking sexy, Scully, I nearly lost it before we had even begun. You were exquisite.

You held my hand after, and I blinked away tears at the beauty of it.

….

You told me you loved me when you woke before dawn, ever the practical one.

I looked at you in the barely-there moonlight and tried to take it all in—the coppery sound of your voice at my throat, the slippery whisper of your pillow-mussed hair, the warm silk slide of your leg across my thigh.

And only when I'd gathered every last piece of it did I turn to you.

I pulled you close and nuzzled your ear. Then I whispered, "But Scully, I've known that forever."


End file.
